Baidu CFO dies in accident in China

TEL AVIV (MarketWatch) - Baidu.com Inc., the Chinese operator of an Internet-search engine, said Chief Financial Officer Shawn Wang died in an accident while vacationing in China on Thursday.

A statement from the company on Saturday gave no further details on the accident.

Wang joined the company
BIDU, -0.63%
as CFO in September 2004; he'd previously been a partner at the accounting and consulting firm Pricewaterhouse Coopers.

Wang also sat as an independent director and chairman of the board's audit committee at WuXi PharmaTech,
WX
the Shanghai provider of outsourced drug-development services.

Analysts said Baidu would be able to avoid a crisis in the absence of Wang.

"While employee sentiment is likely to be negative in the near term, we believe the business impact is not significant," said Dick Wei, a technology strategist with JPMorgan in Hong Kong, in a note Monday.

Wei cited Baidu.com's senior management team and "solid" finance and human resources departments as capable of steering the firm through the transition ahead.

"We remain positive of Baidu, the dominant market leader in China's online search market, which is still in an early growth stage," Wei said.

Wang also sat as an independent director and chairman of the board's audit committee at WuXi PharmaTech,
WX
the Shanghai provider of outsourced drug-development services.

Baidu went public on Nasdaq in August 2005 at $27 a share; less than 21/2 years later, it's trading at nearly 15 times its IPO price.

Baidu said the CFO's duties would be assumed by the company's senior managers for now.

JPMorgan said Haoyu Shen, Baidu's vice president of business operations, would likely succeed Wang in overseeing finance operations.

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